An authentically awkward exploration of grief particularly well-suited for preteen boys.
Seventh-grader Noah Cohen and his best friend, Dash, eat, sleep, and breathe comedy, so it’s no surprise they choose to research Jewish comedians for their mitzvah project at Hebrew school, even if it means partnering with Noah’s female nemesis, Noa Cohen.
As long as Noah and Dash can spend their weekends watching movies and making up comedy sketches with Dash’s dad, the “coolest guy on the planet,” life is good. Until it isn’t. Dash’s father’s unexpected death is devastating for Noah, not only because he misses Gil, but because it drives a wedge between the two best friends as Dash struggles to cope. What’s worse is that Dash has found a new confidant seemingly overnight, leaving Noah reeling and desperate to win back his best friend. Despite the support of his two moms, his sister, and his rabbi, Noah leaps and lurches awkwardly through his first real experience with death. While it is uncomfortable and sometimes even painful to read, Noah’s struggle also feels incredibly authentic. And fortunately for readers, there’s just enough humor to help lighten the mood when things get dark. While the primary characters all appear to be white, it is beyond refreshing to see a story that is so thoroughly Jewish without a hint of persecution. And while bookshelves are filled with stories about children losing a family member, this novel offers something new by focusing on the unexpected loss of someone beloved but not related. An author’s note and list of resources follow the story.
An authentically awkward exploration of grief particularly well-suited for preteen boys. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-55175-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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